The Ccwh Newsletter
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Summer 2004 Volume 34, Issue 2 THE CCWH NEWSLETTER www.theccwh.org The Newsletter for the Coordinating Council for Women in History A PROPOSAL FOR MENTORING BY: Françoise N. Hamlin INSIDE THIS ISSUE: As I come to the end of my does not have to be that way. the lack of resources, it would time as a graduate student, I am Last year at my institution, the not be feasible to act like a Public History News 3 made more aware of the impor- Graduate School began a pro- matchmaking service and pair tance of mentors. Looking ject called “Women Mentoring up teams. However, the back on my experiences, I have Women.” Throwing out the CCWH can provide a unique Making History Pay 3 benefited greatly from the coun- net across the university, organ- service that allows those willing sel of committee advisors and izers solicited possible mentors to participate to sign up, list contacts with faculty in other and recipients to sign up on an their details and interests and Baby Track or Ph.D. 4 institutions. Not everyone is as online database. Restricted to browse for their own matches, Track lucky. Some students live soli- faculty and members of the making the connection them- tary lives fostered by hands-off Graduate School, the database selves. I would like to hear Film Review 5 advisors and perhaps the pau- can be browsed for information from you! Do you think this is city of female faculty in their to help match women together a viable idea? Are there other departments. With few oppor- and also to find possible help working examples of such a News From Members 7 tunities to connect with other for conferences and research. project in your institution and female scholars at conferences, At the last CCWH board do you have any ideas to in- we know that graduate school meeting in Washington DC this crease the efficacy of the data- Prizes 7 can be difficult for many. As January, it was agreed that the base? Please reply to francoise. junior faculty, many women organization should embark on [email protected] by the end of are further isolated as they establishing a mentoring pro- July. Call for Papers 8 plough through the first years of gram for women historians. lecturing and transforming the We are still sorting out the de- dissertation into the book. It tails for the webpage. Given A FFIRMATIVE ACTION BY: Rosa Maria Pegueros “Affirmative action” has ous time. The Vietnam War tion was first articulated pub- such an upbeat sound, like was shifting into full gear. In- licly in the Civil Rights Act of “positive thinking,” or Bolivia, the CIA had assassi- 1964, and mandated by Presi- “birthday party.” If the nated Che Guevara and the dent Lyndon B. Johnson’s Ex- branches of government had photo of his wounded cadaver ecutive Order 11246 (1965) but ever approached it in an opti- haunted publications around four years before it exploded mistic way, we might have the world. A few blocks from into a controversial educational more to show for it after 30 my high school and college, in policy. I enrolled in the Univer- years than we do. Instead, like the Haight-Ashbury, the 1967 sity of San Francisco, run by Cinderella on the night of the “summer of love” gave way to the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits ball, affirmative action has been the chilling 1968 season of as- have always been considered the poor and abused stepchild; sassinations: first, of Dr. Martin the great intellectuals of the grudgingly supported by the Luther King, Jr. on April 4, Roman Catholic Church; my Rosa Maria Pegueros is an Associate government, accepted with em- then scarcely a month later, experience bears that out. Our Professor at the University of Rhode Island. barrassment by many of its up- Bobby Kennedy on June 6. A teachers, almost all Jesuits, had wardly mobile recipients, and week later, I graduated from mountains of time for us; we denied outright by others who high school. were encouraged to write pa- have benefited from it. I started college that fall, pers, which then were returned I came of age at a tumultu- four years after Affirmative Ac- (Continued on page 2) Volume 34, Issue 2 Page 2 N EWSLETTER EDITORIAL TEAM NEWS Karol K. Weaver will be tude to Provost Linda McMillin Karol K. Weaver leaving Purdue University at and Dean Laura de Abruna for Department of History the end of the summer term. the support they have offered to Susquehanna University She would like to thank Dean the CCWH Newsletter. 311 Steele Hall Howie Zelaznik and Professor Assistant Editor Chris Corley Selinsgrove, PA 17870 Doug Hurt for the financial and will be leaving Minnesota State [email protected] administrative assistance that University Moorhead at the end they provided to the CCWH of the spring term. Corley will Dr. Chris Corley Newsletter. She also would like join the faculty of Minnesota Department of History to thank Adrianne Renberg and State University, Mankato as an Minnesota State University, Heather Baumgardt for their assistant professor in the Depart- Mankato fine work as editorial assistants. ment of History. 110 Armstrong Hall Weaver will join the faculty For all comments, questions, Mankato, MN 56001 of Susquehanna University as and submissions, please contact: [email protected] an assistant professor in the Karol Weaver is the editor for the CCWH Newsletter. Department of History. She would like to extend her grati- AFFIRMATIVE ACTION CONT. (Continued from page 1) ships were being given to an intellectual and certainly the only Latina. to us filled with comments and blacks, and the rest of us would could not be thrown in with the Only, only, lonely. One be- suggestions. Our classes were pay higher tuition. basketball team. I cringe to re- comes accustomed to being the small. I took to the intellectual I didn’t know where I fit in member those days and the cas- only one, but, like unchosen life at USF naturally but it was this picture. As a working-class ual racism that we all practiced. solitude, it wears you down. It not without its difficulties. I had Latina commuter student who Almost a generation later, is lovely to be a tenured profes- to work almost full-time to had done quite well in high after taking various detours sor, to be free to speak my mind make ends meet, even though school, it never occurred to me along the way, I landed a ten- and mentor my students in my the official policy restricted our that I might have been admitted ure-track job in New England. own way. I would not be here work hours to 20 per week. It solely for the purpose of adding Most of my classmates in the but for affirmative action and simply never occurred to me to a brown face to the mix. In- Latin American history field white liberal guilt but it’s better ask for financial aid: in my deed, I don't think I thought of were pretty decent, but some of than not being here at all. mind, scholarships were for the myself as a person of color; the my white graduate school class- “truly needy.” I could work; term hadn't come into common mates, both men and women, therefore, I didn't think I use then. I had no black friends sneered at me when we went on needed the money. I remember in college; the only black stu- the job market. I heard the being happy at USF, almost to dents I knew of were on the stage-whispered comments and the point of being blissful. basketball team. I didn't have found anonymous anti- Rosa Maria Pegueros is an associ- The hardest thing, emotionally any Latino friends, for that affirmative action articles in my ate professor of Latin American speaking, was struggling with matter; there were only about mailbox. I remembered how History and Women's Studies at all the transitions that were tak- 25 in my first year class of 700, Mexican-American writer Rich- the University of Rhode Island. She ing place. We discussed af- and the one Latina I knew best ard Rodriguez related in his also serves on the Executive Com- firmative action endlessly. The insisted that her parents were book, Hunger of Memory, how he mittee of the American Association talk in the dining halls and white, from Spain, and so she had been hounded into giving of University Professors and on the the snack bars resentfully dis- wasn't Latina even though her up his dream of teaching Eng- AAUP's Committee on Women in cussed favoring black students olive skin and Hispanic last lish literature by jealous class- the Academic Profession. with special scholarships. There name broadcast the fact. There mates. I hunkered down and were jokes about affirmative was little question that she and went my own way. When I action improving the basketball her family considered them- graduated, only two of the eight team. Everywhere, it was un- selves to be a cut above Latinas women I’d started grad school derstood, the special scholar- like me. I only knew that I was with graduated with me. I was Page 3 P UBLIC HISTORY NEWS B Y MARLA MILLER training in the field to the chal- education. Distance learning On March 27th, the Coor- lenges facing public historians also came up in more than one dinating Council for Women in trying to do good work in a cli- session, including a fascinating History co-sponsored “Making mate of shrinking resources.